Kabimba accuses Rupiah of trivialising Sinazongwe shooting

COMMENT - All excellent points. The Rupiah Banda government is treating this shooting as an issue that should not embarrass their 'friends'. They are corrupt to the core.

Kabimba accuses Rupiah of trivialising Sinazongwe shooting
By Chibaula Silwamba
Mon 25 Oct. 2010, 11:30 CAT

WYNTER Kabimba has charged that President Rupiah Banda does not care about the lives of Zambians that are shot and wounded.

Commenting on President Banda’s statement that people must not single out the Chinese and create phobia against them over the shooting and wounding of 11 Zambians working for the Chinese-owned Collum Coal Mine in Sinazongwe district, Patriotic Front (PF) secretary general Kabimba condemned President Banda for trivialising the shootings and not showing concern for the victims of the brutality. “We expect him as head of state to be concerned when a life of a human being is threatened by another human being. That is the line we expect him to take. His saying these incidents are common is not to show concern as head of state for the lives of Zambians. He doesn’t seem to care,” said Kabimba, a lawyer, in an interview.

“If the Chinese ambassador himself has acknowledged that the wrong has been committed, it will be wrong for the President to generalise the problem; we are talking about a particular incident here, and as head of state, what I would have expected him to say is not to trivialise the matter. The way he is approaching this problem, from his comment, he is trivialising the matter.” He said President Banda’s statement was demeaning to the victims. “These are human beings; these are Zambian nationals. If the Chinese ambassador himself says they are sorry that this incident has happened, the President cannot say, ‘but these people are being shot every day by Americans, by Zambians and everybody’.

That is not the point. The point is that the shooting of any human being must be condemned,” Kabimba said. “Nobody is condemning this incident because those that involved are Chinese. I think the reaction would have been the same even if it had been another national.” He explained that early this year, when then deputy minister of health and Chitambo parliamentarian Dr Solomon Musonda shot and wounded a PF member Jackson Musaka in Serenje district, people condemned the legislator. “That was the shooting by a Zambian. But we didn’t hear, and up to now we have not heard, the President condemn Dr Solomon Musonda.

The statement that he made was that ‘let us find out why he did what he did’. So, he wanted to find out the justification for Dr Solomon Musonda having shot at a defenseless citizen and that is a line he President Banda is taking even in this Sinazongwe incident,” Kabimba said. He said this was not the first time President Banda was defending culprits in shooting incidents going by his defence of Dr Musonda and now the Chinese.

“I was shocked with his reaction over Dr Solomon Musonda’s incident. This is the second time he is doing that,” said Kabimba.

“We can judge him by his statements that he does not care about the lives of human beings, going by his own words, and nobody is putting words in his mouth.”

Two Chinese nationals on Friday last week shot and wounded 11 Zambian workers at Collum Coal Mine in Sinazongwe after the locals demanded improved conditions of service and salaries. But on Thursday President Banda, in defence of the Chinese, said it was not good to incite people against them.

“I think let’s be careful that we don’t single out people. Every day people are shot by Zambians, are shot by white people, are shot by the Americans; they are shot by everybody. You know this business of Chinese! Chinese! It’s like you want to create a phobia against people. It’s obviously wrong,” said President Banda. CK/FM